I am a Burmese exile taking a near-permanent refuge in New York and Sydney. Here are my essays about Burma and anything else I feel like writing about. And posting the articles I like from selected sites. Bridging Burma to the world this Blog is more of a Politically-Oriented Literary Blog than a Plain News Blog or a Sophisticated Thoughts Blog.

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Egyptian Muslim Imam Suing Trump For New Muslim Ban

A federal judge in (the Socialist State
of) Hawaii on Wednesday issued a sweeping freeze of President Trump’s new
executive order temporarily barring the issuance of new visas to citizens of
six-Muslim majority countries and suspending the admission of new refugees.

In a blistering, 43-page opinion U.S. District Judge Derrick K. Watson
pointed to Trump’s own comments and those of close advisors as evidence that
his order was meant to discriminate against Muslims and declared there was a
“strong likelihood of success” those suing would prove the directive violated
the constitution.

Watson declared that “a reasonable,
objective observer—enlightened by the specific historical context,
contemporaneous public statements, and specific sequence of events leading to
its issuance—would conclude that the Executive Order was issued with a purpose
to disfavor a particular religion.”

Watson’s decision came in response to a
lawsuit filed by the state of Hawaii. Lawyers for the state alleged the new
travel ban, much like the old, violated the establishment clause of the First
Amendment because it was essentially a Muslim ban, hurt the ability of state
businesses and universities to recruit top talent and damaged the state’s
robust tourism industry.

They pointed particularly to the case of Ismail Elshikh, the imam of the
Muslim Association of Hawaii, whose mother-in-law’s application for an
immigrant visa was still being processed. Under the new executive order,
lawyers for Hawaii said, Elshikh feared that his mother-in-law, a Syrian
national, would ultimately be banned from entering the United States.

The six nations affected by President
Trump's executive action on immigration are not actually countries where
terrorists who have carried out fatal attacks the United States came from.
(Daron Taylor/The Washington Post)

“Dr. Elshikh certainly has standing in
this case. He, along with all of the Muslim residents in Hawaii face higher
hurdles to see family because of religious faith,” lawyer Colleen Roh Sinzdak
said at a hearing Wednesday. “It is not merely a harm to the Muslim residents
of the state of Hawaii, but also is a harm to the United State as a whole and
is against the First Amendment itself.”

Elshikh is an American citizen of
Egyptian descent who has been a resident of Hawaii for over a decade. His wife
is of Syrian descent and is also a resident of Hawaii.

The state of Hawaii is challenging
President Donald Trump’s new travel ban. In addition to the state of Hawaii,
the plaintiff in this case is Ismail Elshikh. The plaintiffs’ lawyers are
arguing that Trump’s executive order suspending immigration from six
Muslim-majority countries violates the Immigration and Nationality Act, the
Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act.

Here’s what you need to know about
Ismail Elshikh, plaintiff in Hawaii’s lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s
travel ban.

1. He is the Imam of the Muslim Association of Hawaii

Ismail Elshikh is the Imam of the
Muslim Association of Hawaii. This organization is located in Manoa, Honolulu,
and it consists of approximately 4,000 Muslims from the state, according to the
group’s website.

In early February, the Muslim
Association of Hawaii and several other groups, including the American Civil
Liberties Union of Hawaii, held a press conference on the steps of the Honolulu
Federal Building speaking about the rights of immigrants and refugees in light
of President Donald Trump’s recent travel ban.

“The reason immigrants have sought
refuge and a home in the United States, and what binds us together in our own
diversity, is our shared commitment to treat each other equally under the law
regardless of creed, color, background, or birthplace,” an ACLU press release
said.

“Diversity and these shared commitments
not only define who we are, but also make us stronger and unique among other
countries. The executive orders are a direct attack against these shared
commitments, seeking to divide us and ultimately, making us weaker. Together,
we must stand firm and defend the values that define who we are as a community,
state, and country.”

2. He is of Egyptian Descent (& A Supporter of Muslim Brotherhood)

According to his personal website,
Ismail Elshikh is 39 years old, and he is of Egyptian descent. Elshihk studied
Islamic Dawah at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt. From 1987 through 1997,
he taught the Quran at the Muslim Family Association in Cairo, and he was also
an imam at the Almuntasir Mosque in Cairo.

Elshihk’s primary language is Arabic,
and his secondary language is English. In addition to being an imam at the
Muslim Association of Hawaii, he is also a visiting professor of Islamic
studies at the Islamic University of Minnesota.

3. He Lives in Honolulu With His Wife and Kids & Is a Legal
Permanent Resident

Elshikh currently resides in Honolulu,
Hawaii with his wife and kids, according to his website. He holds a green card,
which means he is a legal permanent resident of the United States. Egypt is not
one of the countries that is covered by either of President Donald Trump’s
travel bans, but if it were, Elshikh would be exempt because he is a legal
permanent U.S. resident.

When the original travel ban was signed
at the end of January, there was initially some confusion about whether it
applied to green card holders, but the new ban makes very clear that it does
not.

4. His Mother-in-Law is From Syria & Is Affected by the Travel Ban

Syrian refugees in Germany going back home for holidays.

According to the Star Advertiser,
although Elshikh himself is not directly affected by the travel ban, his
mother-in-law is.

Elshikh’s mother-in-law is Syrian, and
Syria is one of the countries included on both of the president’s travel bans.
Elshikh says that his mother-in-law was in the middle of her visa application
process and that this executive order will mean she will not be able to visit
her family in Hawaii.

Under the revised order signed on
Monday, any foreign nationals who have a valid U.S. visa as of March 16th, 2017
will be exempt from the travel restrictions. However, foreign nationals who do
not have a visa by March 16th will not be able to obtain one for at least three
months.

5. He Joined the Case in February

Ismail Elshikh was added as a plaintiff
to the Trump travel ban case after the lawsuit had already been filed.

On February 14th, Elshikh became a
plaintiff in the lawsuit; the suit was on hold at the time but the hold was
temporarily lifted so that Elshikh could join the case. At the same time, a new
count was added, with Hawaii saying that the travel ban violated the Religious
Freedom Restoration Act, according to Hawaii News Now.

After President Donald Trump signed his
revised travel ban this week, Hawaii sought to amend and resume its lawsuit,
and on March 8th, a U.S. district judge granted that request. The Department of
Justice now has until March 13th to respond.

The plaintiff listed in Hawaii’s
lawsuit against President Trump’s executive order on immigration is a member of
an organization that has several current and former leaders tied to terrorist
activity.

Dr. Ismail Elshikh — the imam of the
Muslim Association of Hawaii — is suing Trump in reaction to the second version
of his immigration moratorium, which was signed on Monday. The order imposed a
90-day hold on foreign nationals from six terror-tied countries from entering
the United States.

According to the Muslim Association of Hawaii website, Imam Elshikh is a
member of the North American Imam Federation (NAIF), a fringe Islamic
organization that has a board and current leadership stacked with radical
Islamic connections.

Kyle Shideler, a terrorism expert and
director of the Threat Information Office at the Center for Security Policy,
tells CR that it’s concerning that Imam Elshikh is a part of NAIF. “Given
NAIF's history it should come as no surprise that the end goal of this lawsuit
is, ultimately, weakening American counter-terrorism or immigration security
efforts,” Shideler said.

He added: "That a member of an organization whose leaders have
included a convicted war criminal, an individual who defended donating money to
a Hamas linked charity, and an unindicted co-conspirator in a terrorism bombing
wants to tell the American people who they can admit for immigration should say
a lot about why such an executive order is needed in the first place."

Bangladeshi War-Criminal President of NAIF.

Steven Emerson, the executive director
of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, also voiced his concerns about
Elshikh's associations. He tells CR:

"NAIF is an extremely radical
Islamist group whose leaders and members have defended some of the most violent
terrorist groups in the world. Some members have been found to be actually
linked to acts of Islamist terrorism. This is a group, some prosecutors have
argued, whose incitement for violence could qualify their categorization as a
providing material support for terrorism."

Current NAIF board members include the
former leader of an al-Qaeda-connected mosque and a radical preacher. Former
leaders include a man convicted of leading an international death squad, and a
prominent Islamist preacher who has praised Osama bin Laden.

Current NAIF leadership

Omar Shahin, a current board member of
NAIF, is the former president of the Islamic Center of Tucson, a mosque that
was once utilized as the “de-facto al-Qaeda headquarters in the United States,”
according to the Investigative Project on Terrorism.

As imam of the mosque, Shahin raised
funds for the Holy Land Foundation, which was later shut down for funneling
money to the terrorist group Hamas. He also held fundraisers for the Global
Relief Foundation, which was later deemed by the U.S. Treasury Department to be
connected to al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.

El Shikh received his PhD from the Graduate Theological Foundation
Islamic Studies Department, which is headed by Shahin. The program was created
in collaboration with the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), an
organization that was started as a Muslim Brotherhood front group.

Dr. Waleed Meneese, another NAIF board
member, has explicitly called for fellow Muslims to kill Jews. "When the
Children of Israel returned to cause corruption in the time of our Prophet
Muhammad," Meneese said in a recent sermon.

"And they disbelieved him, God
destroyed him at his hand. In any case, God Almighty has promised them
destruction whenever they cause corruption,” he said of the Jewish people. Meneese
has also called for the killing of apostates from Islam, and for the treating
of non-Muslims as second-class citizens.

Former NAIF leadership

Ashrafuzzaman Khan is the former
president of NAIF and a current leader at the Muslim Brotherhood-connected
Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA). In 2013, he was tried in a Bangladesh
court as he was accused of drafting a kill list of intellectuals inside the
country.

Ashraf Khan was charged with 11 counts of war
crimes as the alleged leader of the Al-Badr death squad. In 2013, he and an
accomplice were sentenced to death in absentia for the abduction and murder of 18
people, including nine university professors, six journalists, and three
physicians.

Egyptian cleric Wagdi Ghoneim was the
chairman of NAIF at the turn of the century. In 2005, he agreed to deportation
to Qatar after U.S. authorities were concerned about his potential connections
to terrorist organizations. Ghoneim has called Osama bin Laden a “martyred
heroic mujahid” and is now closely tied to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. He
has been banned from entering several countries due to his radicalism.

Another former NAIF board member is
Siraj Wahhaj, who was infamously listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the
1993 World Trade Center bombings. Wahhaj testified in defense of the Blind
Sheikh, Omar Abdel-Rahman, who served a life sentence for being the mastermind
behind terrorist plots in the United States.

What else?

The North American Imam Federation is
perhaps best known as the group that allegedly planned and staged the “flying
imams” incident. After a 2006 NAIF conference, several imams connected to the
group were booted from a domestic flight after exhibiting bizarre, threatening
behavior, terrifying fellow passengers.

NAIF and the Hamas-tied Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR)
showcased the incident as a prime example of America’s supposed problem with so-called
“Islamophobia.”

President Trump’s immigration
moratorium, blocking non-citizens from coming into the U.S. from the six terror
havens of Iran, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Libya, will go into effect
next week, barring a successful legal challenge by Elshikh and Hawaii or other
actors.